It is often desirable to place the casing of a tape rule at a certain position with the measuring blade extended so as to enable measurements to be made at remote locations, and to do so without need for holding the casing. In the conventional tape rule the blade pays out through a peripheral aperture, and is oriented with its width dimension corresponding to that of the casing. Even if the casing has straight, flat edge sections on which it can be supported, therefore, standing the casing on edge (as must be done if the indicia on the face of the blade are to be visible) affords a very low level of stability. If left unattended, there is a likelihood that the rule casing will tip over, particularly if the extended blade is disturbed in any way, thus not only making it difficult to read the distance scale but, indeed, making the measurement itself unreliable due to displacement of the rule from its original position.